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LazyBridge

Submitted by chopmeister on Sat, 2014-07-12 20:36

0
votes

Version:

V1.2

Date Updated:

02/17/2015

A simple tool to save a lot of time if bridging a lot of polygons is part of your workflow.

[V1.2] UPDATE!

Now LazyBridge works even if the editable poly in question has modifiers on top. Also, the GO button is no more, now the script will automatically select an bridge polygons when you click the direction button.

This is the first script I've ever written. The idea is that when you are modelling for archviz, often you might find yourself bridging polygons to make holes for windows or to connect two segments of a wall to make a beam etc.
LazyBridge is especially useful if you have to do a lot of those.

You simply select only one polygon from all the polygon pairs you want to bridge and LazyBridge will find the other ones, effectively cutting the time you spend selecting individual polygons in half.

It has two modes, "inward" and "outward". The inward mode searches along the inverse of the given face's normal (what you would use for holes) and the outward mode searches along the actual face normal. Bear in mind, that due to the way the script finds matching faces, they should be more or less the same size. If the originally selected polygon is much bigger than the one on the other side it will probably miss when searching for the exact match.

Additional Info:

Download the zip for your max version and copy the contents to the root max directory as usual. A category "ChopmeisterScripts" will be created in your customize user interface panel.

This should work in all max versions, but inexperienced as I am, I may have missed something. In that case please let me know.

Also, any feedback, suggestions or such are very welcome.

If you had the V1.0 installed, please delete the folder "LazyBridge" from your scripts folder.

Since I plan on making more scripts like these I have reorganized the file structure, so all my future scripts will be inside the "scripts/ChopmeisterScripts" folder.

It's intended behavior - thus the error window. Thing is, this (for now) works with editable polys. In the sense that an editable poly object must be at the bottom of the stack. It used to throw an error if there were modifiers above it, that is now fixed. For it to work on an edit poly -modifier- some additional changes are necessary. But, I'll try to take a look at it tomorrow, it shouldn't be too hard to do. :)

I finally caught up with some time to do something about the issues mentioned here, now the script works even if there are modifiers above the editable poly object, and the GO button is gone, when you click in or out, it automatically selects and bridges the polygons. Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm testing the new version now, and if everything is right, I'll upload it ASAP.

The next version will definitely have the option to do it automatically, either via a small dialog like now, or directly via toolbar buttons.

About the editable poly issue, the script was mainly intended for helping with repetitive work while modeling large buildings with lots of windows. The fact that anybody would want to use it while having anything in the stack didn't even cross my mind to be honest, because it basically never happens to me while I work. I'll see what I can do about that as it does seem really useful. I'll probably have to change something in the way the script handles selections, which means I'll have to learn how to do that first. :)